The Official 2008-2009 NHL Thread

Ok, the new season starts tomorrow with the draft, my main interest is the first pick, Tampa will have a monster line if they put the kid in this season, alas they don't have shit for goal keeping so not much to worry about there.

The first change will be for Rule 76.2 on faceoffs, placing the first faceoff of a power play in the defending zone of the team that committed the foul.

Second, a change to Rule 81.1 on icing will state that, "Any contact between opposing players while pursuing the puck on an icing must be for the sole purpose of playing the puck and not for eliminating the opponent from playing the puck. Unnecessary or dangerous contact could result in penalties being assessed to the offending player."

The last change will be to Rule 85.5 on faceoff location, saying that if a puck is shot off the goal frame, goal post or crossbar, the subsequent faceoff will remain in the end zone where the puck went out of play.

Also, the league announced Wednesday that the board endorsed immediate and long-term recommendations provided by the Goaltender Equipment Working Group and the league's competition committee and will work with goalies and equipment manufacturers on standards for the maximum size of all equipment that a player can wear.

All pretty good changes I would say, they addressed the icing which seems to be a great compromise between the free icing versus no icing, so the players are safer. Goalie changes seem to be at least a year away.

Cool.

Incredibly stupid. The penalty is punishment enough, inventing the puck location is over the top.

The league may be concerned of players committing neutral-zone penalties with little time remaining in order to get a faceoff outside their zone. (To run out the clock)

Maybe. But I still think that this rule is a gross over-correction.

1. Tampa Bay - Steve Stamkos
2. Los Angeles - Zach Bogosian
3. Atlanta - Drew Doughty
4. St Louis - Nikita Filatov
5. New York(I) - Alex Pietrangelo
6. Columbus - Luke Schenn
7. Toronto - Mikkel Boedker
8. Phoenix - Cody Hodgson
9. Nashville - Colin Wilson
10. Vancouver - Kyle Beach
11. Chicago - Luca Sbisa
12. Anaheim - Tyler Myers
13. Buffalo - Zach Boychuk
14. Carolina - Colten Teubert
15. Nashville - Joe Colborne
16. Boston - Mattias Tedenby
17. Calgary - Jordan Eberle
18. Ottawa - Michael Del Zotto
19. Columbus - Jared Staal
20. New York® - Josh Bailey
21. New Jersey - Jakub Markstrom
22. Edmonton - Tyler Cuma
23. Washington - Jake Gardiner
24. Minnesota - Kiril Petrov
25. Montreal - Nicolas Deschamps
26. Buffalo - Zac Dalpe
27. Philadelphia - Maxime Sauve
28. Los Angeles - Tyler Ennis
29. Atlanta - Jamie Arniel
30. Detroit - Erik Karlsson

1. STEVEN STAMKOS: Consensus best player in the draft. Excellent two-way forward with great vision and elite offensive skills. Incredibly fast with an awesome scoring touch. Could use a little more physicality but by no means a puny player. Compares to Brad Richards, Steve Yzerman

2. ZACH BOGOSIAN: Exceptional all-around defenseman and best physical specimen in the draft. Compares to Chris Pronger or Dion Phaneuf. Bogosian gets the nod at #2 given that LA is stacked with puck movers and Bogosian is better defensively.

3. DREW DOUGHTY: Possibly the best upside of any D-man in the draft. Doughty has good size, exceptional offensive skills and is (contrary to popular opinion) pretty solid in his own zone. Doughty possesses almost super-human hockey sense and could be the most cerebral player available. Compares to Sergei Gonchar, Ray Borque

4. NIKITA FILATOV: Best scorer available in this draft will be taken by the team in most need of scoring help. Filatov is committed to playing in the NHL and is not under contract with any Continental Hockey League team. Excellent work ethic and leadership skills. Compares to Pavel Bure, Illya Kovalchuk.

5. ALEX PIETRANGELO: Tall, mobile defenseman with great hands and a powerful shot. I don’t know all that much about Pietrangelo, but his upside is said to possibly be higher than Doughty or Bogosian. Compares to Zdeno Chara.

6. LUKE SCHENN: Best shut-down defenseman available at the draft. Like Pietrangelo, I don’t know much about Schenn other than his hockey sense and size, which are excellent. As a shut-down defenseman, his footwork could determine his ability to adjust to the NHL. Compares to Scott Hannan, Robyn Regehr.

7. MIKKEL BOEDKER: Fastest player in the draft and an excellent playmaker. Boedker has good size and doesn’t appear to have any glaring weaknesses. Not as much of a scorer as Filatov or Stamkos, but not far behind in terms to ability. Compares to Pat Kane, Milan Michalek.

The draft is nearly impossible to predict so if I get 1/4 of these right I'll be happy.

I definitely agree with this.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3452292

Not sure if this would happen, but man Rangers getting kicked out of NHL? That would suck, I want my arch nemesis in for the long haul.

God, the NHL is so fucking stupid. Nice going Bettman.

pulling this shit on an Original 6. classy. aside from the fact that the entire suit is just childish, petty bullshit

I don't think being an original 6 should have any weight in any situation , but obviously this situation is laughable at best.

I think you guys are misinterpreting the article. It says the NHL is threatening to force MSG to sell the team. That means a change of ownership, not the end of the Rangers franchise.

"The NHL is threatening to kick the owners of the New York Rangers out of the league OR force them to sell the team as punishment for accusing league officials of violating antitrust laws."

nope, rangers out OR rangers under new management. you can't just kick owners out of a league and have the team stay in, that's the whole point of owning the team. just bad wording by the article.

Couldn't the NHL simply buy out the franchise (kicking the owners out) and then sell it to a new owner for the usual 200M entry fee?

I don't think anyone in the hockey world actually believes the NHL would contract to 29 teams.

nah of course they are going to force them to sell, probably to the canadian dude, but the bottom line would be that they would be out of msg, possibly going to meadowlands while they build a new arena, but that's all a big if, i'm sure bettman would be lynched before this would ever happen.

I just got a raging boner from that.. bure is probably my all time favorite player, and st louis is my team obviously.

wow blues stole mason from the preds, that was a great move for blues.

emery is on the chopping block officially in waivers.

What happens if nobody picks him up? Because nobody will at his salary. Isn't it like 2 mill?

if nobody picks him up, senators have to buy out his contract.

Sweet, the Blues finally got a competent backup goalie, after a season in which our backups were laughable at best, resulting in Legace getting overworked (he really was fantastic last season and the sole reason the Blues were contenders for about 2/3 of the year)

Maple Leafs have given the Canadiens permission to speak to Sundin...now that would be strange. If he goes to the Habs his legacy as a Maple Leaf will be forever tarnished probably.

LOL WTF.

The Leafs traded their 3rd round pick to St. Louis for 33 year old Jamal Mayers. LOL WUT

I thought they wanted to rebuild the team.

FUCK

If I see another Eklund rumor on the internet I might just puke.

What?!! We gave up Jamal Mayers?! Fuck!

YES Luke Schenn to Toronto.

Cody Hodgson to Vancouver. Looks good to me.

What's he like? I don't think I've ever seen him play and his stats don't seem too impressive to me.

He's a cool guy. He was the longest tenured Blue, until today obviously. He's always been really fast and works hard, although he doesn't score much. I've always liked him though.

i wonder what'll happen when the rangers go up to make their pick. maybe someone will punch bettman?

He is extremely fast and probably one of the hardest workers in the NHL. He may not score much but he has a ton of character and is amazing on the penalty kill because he will outwork the power play forwards (IMO he was probably the biggest reason that the blues had one of the best PK's early in the season). I'm sad to see him go because he was really cool, but the blues are trying to stock pile the younger players and really build a juggernaut so the trade makes sense considering the draft is so strong this year. I'm really pleased that we picked up Mason because we were in dire need of a dependable back up for Legace.

Our 1st round draft pick Alex Pietrangelo is pretty exciting because I have felt that the blues really lacked offensive minded defensemen all of last season. We had some of the scoring talent available but we could not sustain any pressure because our defense guys were never able to keep the puck in and make smart offensive plays like stepping in on the rush. Having Erik Johnson and Alex Pietrangelo on the blue line for a power play could be incredible in a couple of years.

Mattias Tedenby left wing from sweeden, sure why not, i hear he's ridiculously fast. but where the fuck is the hard nose defense and centre dammit, we traded down so we have shit loads of picks.

I was at the arena getting my jersey signed by some big guns, that was cool, will post a pic later.

My picks are way off, as usual. Only ones I called were Stamkos, Myers, and sorta Colin Wilson (had Nashville taking him, just 2 picks later).

I was one pick off on several guys though and the only real shocker was Josh Bailey.

that first round was a cluster fuck, i couldn't keep up with the switcharooos of the devils, shit i don't even know when we pick next anymore.

No mention of the Russian League trying to steal Malkin from the NHL?

yea i think that's a done deal, he didn't seem too keen to handle all the pressure they put on him, and 12 million a year is not half bad.

I doubt this happens. Malkin practically flees the country and leaves behind a massive contract to play for Pittsburgh....only to go back to Russia in pursuit of a big contract?

Also, I'm not sure of the details, but playing in the KHL could affect his IIHF eligibility (including the olympics) and I'm pretty sure the KHL has a player cap much lower than 12M.

Jagr is much more likely, especially if Hossa doesn't sign with Pittsburgh and they can offer Malkin more money.

Plus, I don't think we can really call it 'stealing' from the NHL since, by that definition, we've 'stolen' Malkin, Ovechkin, and countless other Russian stars over the years.

To be fair, this was just the 2nd NHL playoffs of Malkin's career. Not a whole lot of players his age can handle that kind of pressure. Also, being the #2 or #3 guy in Pittsburgh is considerably less pressure than being the #1, 12M-man in Russia.

that's what i say too, it's his second season and i can't believe the amount of shit he had to get for his playoff output. anyway, now the rumors flipped 180, hossa wants free agency, malkin wants to stay, i will just wait on september for that drama.

This is why I like rooting for a team that doesn't generally play the free agent market and doesn't usually attract media attention. Much easier to concentrate on building the team when you build from within.

yea except it drives me insane trying to figure out if the devils are actually doing anything at all. lack of info is pretty bad, but i'll take it anyday versus the rumors every second.

splitsies 4-4?

No mention of the Flyers losing one of their better players to fucking COLUMBUS!?! Goddamn.

I mean... trading. Stupid.

It can be both things, Detroit has an amazing draft track record.



Oilers (my hometown team) didn't do much at the draft and likely will need to make some moves come July.

Detroit, Anaheim, San Jose, most teams that are competitive year after year are the ones that spend their money on solid scouting and player development rather than throwing it at big name free agents.

Detroit, however has an amazing draft record, especially with later round European picks. Most likely due to one or two exceptional scouts. Those teams also are able to add one or two free agents that actually make an impact (excepting Bertuzzi ).

Who did they trade?